“We live at night, we love at day and when the dawn falls, we’re still out to play.” Gonzalez marches on…
Dude, welcome to DMCWORLD. What a summer you have coming up! Let’s begin with the ‘Army of Bastards’ tune which is the launch of your new bedroom producers project. Firstly, talk us through this incredible tune…
“We live at night, we love at day and when the dawn falls, we’re still out to play. We give it all, we won’t stop, we’ll keep on marching. Army of bastards!”. The tune itself kind of says it all, it’s about the simple fact that we’re actually living this. Nightlife, working nonstop for the love of music and no matter what kind of obstacles, laws or industry we encounter, we’ll keep on marching! The ‘Army of Bastards’ is actually the collective of unknown producers of the Vatogonzalez.com community and my anthem is summing up how we feel about the way we’re living.”
And can you now tell us about the bedroom producers mix tape project which is such a great idea…
“First of all, I cannot take full credit for the project. The initial idea came out of the Vatogonzalez.com community itself. They wanted to create a mixtape with only producers of our website. I then joined in by adding the name ‘Army of Bastards’, as I’m often referred to as the ‘Dirty House Bastard’, and a bit of graphical design to give them identity. With this new found identity and family feel, they really started to get into it. Two months later I found 100+ new tracks from unknown, but very talented, new producers in my Dropbox. I offered mixing the tape and backing it fully with marketing, if the quality of the tunes was of a certain level. Needless to say, that was the case! I was totally blown away by the creativity and quality of my Army, so I got to work. This resulted into more than 10.000 Soundcloud plays on the first day we put the mixtape online and eventually led to this interview!”
How did you approach your remix of the 2 Bears – they are two people you don’t want to upset!
“I’m familiar with the nature of the beast, since my own name literally means ‘Bear’ in Swedish. Most people tend to forget that deep down inside, they are actually the quite friendly teddy bearish kind of musical mammals. From the remix point of view, I just sat down in my studio (translation: Mac with monitor speakers somewhere in a ghetto apartment), got my producer outfit on (translation: boxer shorts) and started doing my profession (translation: just smashing buttons until I made that ‘ugly’ face you make when you hear a nasty bassline). I never produce with a plan, I’m just doing the voodoo that I do until something comes out that is putting a smile on my face. Making music is something I still do with the same passion as the first day I discovered computers could be used for more than surfing porn.”
What is the current top 10 you are spinning…
“I’m kind of a bootleg type of DJ, so the chances are pretty big the following songs are hard to find online. In fact, some of the originals haven’t even been released yet. The competition amongst DJs in the Netherlands is fierce, so in order to stand out and get the crowd into a complete frenzy, you have to possess rare club bangers that everybody knows but nobody plays.”
1) Lykke Li – I follow Rivers (Alvita Bootleg)
2) Lethal Bizzle & Donae’o vs Vato Gonzalez – Not a saint
3) Sagat – Fuk dat (Acapella)
4) Vato Gonzalez & The Young Punx – Body Harder
5) Punish – Just an intro
6) Vato Gonzalez – Get Up (Ilker Akay remix)
7) Sonic C – Androids on Acid
8) New Ivory – A Night (Modek remix)
9) Skitzofrenix – Respek from da man
10) Jacob van Hage & Saint Liz – Voodoo
Next up is your 6th edition of the Dirty House release, what can we expect?
“The usual mess of everything that I find appealing about music in general. House in all its forms with a little moombahton this time, mixed together fast enough so even a person with the concentration span of a 3 year old with ADHD and a bag of skittles won’t press that infernal fast-forward button. I’ve always kept the influences of hiphop and the percussion of latin music in there, because partying is not a whole lot of fun without women on the dance floor. The general consensus within house music is that everything is becoming louder en louder, but let’s not forget about the beauty of coming home with a hangover, a beautiful girl and a pleasantly cute little amount of tinnitus.”
Tell us a little about how you first fell in love with dance music. What was the first record that first made you fall in love with dance music?
“The radio stations did an outstanding job by nearly boring me to death with their pre-chewed and tasteless dance music, so the style in general never appealed to me until a friend gave me a mixtape. Not just ‘a mixtape’. For me that was ‘thé mixtape’. It contained music with fierce, raw, relentless energy that just made me want to lose my marbles and go bonkers. Never in my life had I heard such aggressive electronic music that just took me away from the here and now and made me want to start a one-man mosh pit. This first song was ‘The Prodigy – Fire (Burning Edit)’ and the rest of the tape some other stuff from that era of music. Ever since, I’ve been a great fan of the underground house music of the early ’90s.”
A massive follow is on the cards to ‘Badman Riddim’ – what you got?
“When ‘Badman Riddim’ was released, I was presented with a rather serious problem. The follow up. I’d produced Badman Riddim 5 years prior the release in the UK, so I wasn’t really in that particular vibe any more. As a producer, I never work with ‘genres’, I just sit down and make music. What kind of style it is, that’s up to others to decide. So, to this date I still haven’t got a clue what kind of genre ‘Badman Riddim’ is supposed to be, I can’t really narrow down its style, nor the follow ups, to anything other than ‘house’. I had the pleasure to be able to work with a lot of talented artists, top line writers and vocalists for the now 5 possible follow ups, which I’ve just finished last week. They are all accessible enough to sing along to the hooks, lady friendly enough to dance all night on, uncomfortable enough to tear your subwoofers to shreds and obscure enough not to sound like anything you’ve ever heard before. It was an interesting process to go through as a producer. I had to make relentless and raw club bangers and then tame the beast, so it would be radio friendly without numbing it down. Countdown has begun!”
And also, if everything above wasn’t enough (!!) – we hear you have been working with some very cool DJs and producers on some future summer collabs…
“In short, I’ve kind of been able to cross out most of the people I wanted to work with 5 years ago, who were on my bucket list. It is super to work with artists like Diplo, Lethal Bizzle, Sneakbo, Sway, Donae’o, The Young Punx, Sandro Silva, Jaguar Skills, Tocadisco and Sinden. So many influences and so many styles, but all with overwhelming energy and that’s just a hint of what’s coming.”
Who are the producers around the world you are giving high fives to at the moment?
“Nicky Romero. He is currently the ‘Dr. Dre’ of house music, so to speak. Everything he creates sounds like the epitome of electronic music. Pushing the boundaries of the power you can get out of 0 dB whilst still sounding squeaky clean. On the other hand, I must give a high five to Congorock. From a sound engineering point, the dirtiness of his sound is damn near blasphemy; but I love it! Then we’ve got Doctor P, I enjoy the way he’s able to sound fresh on every tune. A lot of producers sound too much like their previous song(s) and are afraid of going off the yellow brick road, while he just took a quad and rampaged through the woods.”
What do you think about the Swedish House Mafia split?
“I jumped of a building, covered in gasoline and lit myself on fire on the way down, with a rope on my neck, feeling the sting of the poison I just drank and just before I hit the ground I pulled the trigger and blasted my brains ever further over the pavement. Once my entrails settled down upon the rendezvous with the dreaded laws of Sir Isaac Newton, I noticed a rather peculiar pattern in the splattered goo that was once my internal organs. The pattern looked like a couple of words. Just before I stepped into the bright light to meet my maker, I looked at the spectacle one more time. It read; ‘Not a single fuck was given’.”
What are the best clubs in Holland right now?
“To be quite honest, the clubs aren’t that impressive in the Netherlands. I’ve got a special place in my heart for Club Bermuda in Eindhoven in the southern parts of the Netherlands and beyond that Melkweg in Amsterdam is usually a good place to find great live performances like Major Lazer, DJ’s like Dave Clarke or classic bands like UB40 and such. When I’m free, I like to be free. So that mean, not going to a club where the DJ’s play any of the music I play or hear all day.”
Finest record you have ever played to a dancefloor?
“It’s not the prettiest. It’s not the most credible. It’s certainly not the most original one, but the Doctor P remix of Tetris has delivered quite a killing streak of mayhem in my books. Although I don’t play a lot of dubstep, usually just 1 or 2 tracks towards the end of a set, this tune just gets people the way ‘The Prodigy – Fire (Burning edit)’ got me all those years ago. Moshpit, wall of death, crowd surfing – anything can happen, it creates such a lovely mess! I could go and name some obscure records of high esteem, but that’s not how this bastards functions. I love creating complete and utter chaos on the floor. After my sets I want people to watch the clock and question where the last 90 minutes just went?”
What is the most embarrassing record in your collection?
“*looks behind him at a huge vinyl collection and thinks*, I don’t have one. If it was a terrible record it wouldn’t be in my collection. I’ve got a lot of tunes here that I certainly would never play in the clubs, but music and mood go together. Some tunes are for those hung over Sundays, others for those after parties that just won’t end. I’ve literally got a tune for just about every mood and since I’m a few sandwiches short of a picnic, there ought to be quite a few that border insanity.”
DJ heroes?
“Laidback Luke, Mixmaster Mike and of course DJ Kool Herc, I’ve gotta respect the oldskool.”
Tell us about your studio set up?
“As I said before, it’s not the most impressive setup in the world but it’s about 10 steps from my bedroom and that’s what I find appealing. It’s a MacPro with solid state drives. To all producers out there: invest in SSD’s, that’s making life so much faster! About 24 GB of memory and 2 UAD PCI cards. Hooked up to that is a M-Audio Fast Track C600 sound card that delivers the Dirty House to 2 ADAM A7 active monitor speakers. I’ve got the 30″ Apple Cinema display and because I went a little over budget there, a simple cheap MIDI keyboard. That’s about it! Logic Pro, Nexus 2, Waves and Massive with a bunch of Vengeance samples and there you have it. My laboratory! You might ask yourself where the isolation is or the special chamber. Good question. The answer is simple; there is none. I’ve got nice neighbours, or deaf neighbours. One of those two.”
Other than dance music, what other genres and artists do you listen to?
“Hiphop, dancehall, UK grime, oldskool 2step and a lot of classics of just about every genre. I’d choose Otis Redding over dance music any day! Since my ‘job’ requires listening to tons of electronic dance music, I find it inspiring to listen to everything but such music when I’m not on the job. It helps to keep my mind clean and listen to the tunes the way any other bloke on the dance floor would.”
What is the shortest amount of time you have ever spent making a record?
“I guess that would be ‘Badman Riddim’. The original took me about 30 minutes to create. It was a little experiment I did, just before dinner. Funny how less thinking at the creative part means more originality at the productions part! Clearly a lot more time went into the track after that, but the initial idea was there in 30 minutes.”
Who is the most fun DJ to play alongside?
“Dyna. No doubt. He’s one of my 010Bookings DJ’s who we always bring along when doing our Dirty House tour abroad. Together with MC Tjen it’s just guaranteed mayhem on the floor. All three of us are a bit insane and none of us is occupied with thoughts about who’s getting the most shine. Beyond that, he’s an monstrously skilled DJ who’d kick my ass any day on a couple of CDJ’s and a mixer! Beyond him, I just did a spontaneous back-2-back session with Nicky Romero a few weeks ago. That ended up in a friendly battle of ‘who gets the crowd going the most crazy’. We couldn’t really decide who won, but we had fun!”
What is the best piece of advice you have ever been given?
“All the people who told me I couldn’t. I’m not talking about people that dare you to do something, but about the bastards that downright told me I could never make it. I could not become a producer. I could not become a DJ. I could better stop and get a day job. Those people keep me sharp and mean. They keep me alive inside and give me the energy to prove them wrong. The underdog position is one I prefer, because they will never see you coming!”
Vato Gonzalez 7 gigs in 34 hours video : http://youtu.be/0VEmXP6vVrc
‘Army of Bastards’ mixtape: https://soundcloud.com/vatogonzalez/armyofbastards
